London experts rubbish claims Earth's magnetic fields flipping will bring 'doomsday'

Doomsday?: London experts have rubbished claims that when the Earth's magnetic fields flip it will cause total devastation
National Centers for Environmental Information

Experts have played down a popular theory that if the Earth’s magnetic field flips from north to south it will bring total chaos to our planet.

According to a new space physics report, there are signs that the Earth’s magnetic fields could “soon” be reversed for the first time in hundreds of thousands of years.

The process is caused by the weakening of a protective field that defends the planet against solar winds, which is generated by the molten core of the Earth.

The report, named The Magnetic Field Is Shifting. The Poles May Flip This Could Get Bad, was published by Undark last week.

It claims that the field has weakened so much that the Earth’s poles are close to flipping, and that the phenomenon could have a drastic impact on the planet by allowing “devastating” stream of particles sun and enhanced ultraviolet B rays from a radiation-damaged ozone layer to hit the planet.

But despite claims that the pole’s reversal could cause widespread damage, London experts have said it is important to clarify that it “will pose no real danger to humans”.

Robert Wicks, Space and climate physics lecturer at UCL, said the poles flipping will mainly impact satellite systems. He said the process is so slow that coping with the change will not be difficult.

Dr Wicks said: “It has been 780,000 years since the last complete reversal of the poles, and it may not happen again for thousands of years. We may not see any change in our lifetime.

“The idea that doomsday is coming is simply not true, and it [the flip] will not pose a threat to human life. It is a gradual process that I’m sure we can handle.”

Dr Wicks added that magnetic field reversals are a common occurrence, in geological terms, that happen gradually over many thousands of years.

He said that if the poles reverse it would likely cause damage to satellite and GPS systems but stressed the level of damage it would cause is uncertain.

Daniel Baker, director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, said in the initial study that the flip could make parts of Earth “uninhabitable."

The reversal of the magnetic field could allow a “devastating” stream of particles from the sun and enhanced ultraviolet B rays from a radiation-damaged ozone layer to hit the planet, the study claims.

It comes after NASA played down claims in 2012 that a magnetic field reversal could lead to an apocalypse, saying: “The science shows that magnetic pole reversal is – in terms of geologic time scales – a common occurrence that happens gradually over millennia.

“While the conditions that cause polarity reversals are not entirely predictable – the north pole’s movement could subtly change direction, for instance – there is nothing in the millions of years of geologic record to suggest that any of the doomsday scenarios connected to a pole reversal should be taken seriously.”

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